Album ReviewPhantastic Ferniture - Phantastic Ferniture

Label: Transgressive

Released: 27th July 2018

Rating: 3 Stars

You’ll probably best know Julia Jacklin from her 2016 album ‘Don’t Let The Kids Win’, a melancholy indie-folk record that saw the Sydney singer-songwriter wear her heart on her sleeve. But, after the idea to form a band with friends was born in a bar on a late night back home on her birthday in 2014, she’s also been building up side-project Phantastic Ferniture alongside bandmates Elizabeth Hughes and Ryan K Brennan, the band meeting up whenever touring schedules would allow and playing occasional hometown shows.

On the trio’s self-titled debut, Julia and her bandmates take her sound in a more upbeat garage-rock-tinged direction. “I’d gone straight into folk music,” she says, “so every experience I’d had on stage was playing sad music with a guitar in my hand. I thought, I would love to know what it’s like to make people feel good and dance.”

This ‘feel good’ attitude is most evident on singles ‘Fuckin ‘N’ Rollin’ and ‘Gap Year’ but there’s variety here too. On ‘Take It Off’ and ‘I Need It’ things take a more lurching, darker turn with rumbling bass lines and a sense of urgency. Julia’s vocals are still the centre-piece here but they take a more playful turn and, at nine songs long, the record serves as a short but promising introduction to a band still in their relative infancy.